Holidays in Azkaban
by ASF13957
Summary: Two Death Eaters find a way to celebrate the winter holidays in Azkaban.  Sort of an entry for Muchcoffee and Flyinglion's holiday contest.  Please R&R.


Hello. So, this is my sort-of-but-not-really entry for Muchcoffee and Flyinglion's Death Eater holiday contest. It's a touch silly, but I couldn't come up with any serious ideas, so there you go.

Temporal explanation: This takes place in the winter of Harry and company's sixth year; the Death Eaters mentioned as being currently in Azkaban were captured after the battle in the Department of Mysteries.

Rating: This could really be K plus, I think, but I rated it T just to be safe - all it has is some mild language.

Disclaimer: Once again, I own nothing specific to Harry Potter.

* * *

Avery leaned against the wall of his cell and used a sharp piece of stone to make another mark on the floor. According to his calculations, he'd been in Azkaban for nearly one hundred and forty days, meaning it was December the fifth of 1996. He sighed and glanced out the small, barred window on the side of his cell, through which he could catch a glimpse of the sunset. A few Dementors drifted outside, silhouetted against the orange and yellow clouds, and Avery shivered reflexively. Although the Dementors were staying relatively far away from the prisoners these days, due to the Dark Lord's orders, they were still close enough that their cold presence was tangible to all of Azkaban's occupants.

Avery looked away from the window and began using his piece of rock to draw a picture of Nagini. Before he could finish more than the snake's head, though, he was interrupted by a rather gloomy sigh coming from the cell across from his and one over. Avery looked up, interested; he knew that the cell's occupant, Mulciber, was not prone to sighing in general.

"Mulciber? What's going on with you?" he called. The other Death Eater was not currently visible from Avery's vantage point, but in a moment he appeared at the door of the cell.

"Not much. It's just – are my calculations correct? Is it December fifth?"

"Yes," Avery answered, somewhat nonplussed. He couldn't see what was depressing about December fifth.

"That means it's the first night of Hanukkah," explained Mulciber despondently. "I can't celebrate it very well because I don't have a menorah."

"I never knew you were Jewish," Avery said, curiously. "I never saw you lighting anything at Hogwarts except Mary MacDonald's hair."

"No – you were sick during Hanukkah in our first year, if I recall, so you were stuck in the hospital wing. I only had the menorah out for the first few days; Bertram Aubrey's rat ate all the unlit candles, so I moved it to a deserted classroom."

"Oh. That explains it," Avery said. "Shame you can't celebrate it here; does there _have _to be a menorah, or can you just… I don't know, pray, or something?"

"I could, and obviously I will, but it isn't the same." Mulciber sighed again, resignedly this time. "Ah well. What about you; you celebrate Christmas, don't you?"

"Sort of – I'm not a Christian, really, I just celebrate the holiday because it's there. I suppose I could have picked Hanukkah to celebrate instead, or the Winter Solstice, or something else; but with Christmas you get presents, and when you're young, that's really all that matters."

"What, so if you got presents during Hanukkah you'd celebrate that?"

"Sure. Why not?"

Mulciber considered. "No one ever said you _couldn't _exchange gifts at some point during Hanukkah," he said presently, "and no matter how entirely insincere and irreligious you might be, it would be nice to have someone to celebrate with."

"Fine by me. Of course, we don't have anything to give one another, even if we did we couldn't get it from one cell to the other, and also we have no menorah, and I don't know any Hebrew prayers. Apart from that, though, we're all set," Avery said, smiling a bit sarcastically.

"Yes. There is that."

They were silent for a while. The hush was broken as Rabastan Lestrange, currently occupying the cell directly across from Avery's, and thus next to Mulciber's, awoke.

"What's going on?" he asked, somewhat sleepily. Avery and Mulciber traded looks. Rabastan was not popular among the Death Eaters due to his annoying tendency to habitually insult people without seeming to notice.

"We were discussing the holidays," Mulciber replied, somewhat reluctantly.

"Oh yeah? Bloody great holidays we'll have in here, Cyril," said Rabastan irritably. Avery rolled his eyes. He knew that Mulciber detested people calling him by his first name. He was sure Rabastan would call _him _something he disliked, as well, if it weren't for the happy coincidence that his first name was the same as his last.

"What holiday do you celebrate, Rabastan?" Mulciber asked, in an attempt to be friendly.

"Don't celebrate any bloody holidays," the sullen Death Eater answered. "It's a waste of time. This conversation is a waste of time. I'm going back to sleep."

He lay back down and pointedly turned to face the wall. "By all means, don't let us keep you up," muttered Avery. He picked up his piece of rock and drew Rabastan's face, and then proceeded to angrily scribble it out.

"What's that?" asked Mulciber.

"What's what?"

"That scraping noise."

"Oh. It's a piece of rock I found. I'm using it to draw on the floor."

"You've got a piece of rock? You lucky bastard."

"You don't have one? Mulciber, they're all the rage… No, seriously though, how did you know it was December fifth if you couldn't mark the days with a rock?"

"I pulled out some thread from my robes and tied it around one of the bars on the window, if you must know."

Avery was silent. He was fascinated by the mental picture of Mulciber painstakingly tying individual threads around the slimy window bars. After a while, he asked, "So… it's been almost a hundred and forty days. How do you have any robes _left?"_

"Don't be thick," Mulciber replied. "My robes are silk. They're very finely woven. I could pull out enough thread for a hundred and forty _years_ and you'd hardly notice the difference."

"Really?"

"Well, no. I'd probably look like I was about to go swimming."

"Right. Let's not be in here for that long, then, alright?" Avery turned the piece of rock around thoughtfully in his hand. "I say – why don't we draw a menorah on the wall with this?"

"Draw one?" Mulciber sounded skeptical.

"Sure; we can draw on one more flame every day, and color in part of the previous ones. I'd send the rock over to you, so you could draw it, but I don't think I can aim well enough from this angle, and I really don't want to lose this rock. My robes aren't silk."

"No, I don't want you to lose the rock either," Mulciber sniggered. "Well, why not? Go ahead and draw the menorah. Tell me when it's done."

They didn't speak for a few minutes, as Avery carefully sketched the nine branches and corresponding candles of the menorah. After embellishing the drawing with pictures of faceted gems and strings of pearls, he put a flame on the middle candle and called over to Mulciber, "It's finished."

"Nice. So now you draw a flame on the rightmost candle, and then I'll recite a prayer."

They did so.

"At this point I'm supposed to sing a hymn," Mulciber explained, "but I shall just recite it in a spoken form. As you may recall from Hogwarts, I'm hardly an amazing singer."

"Yeah, I recall it… Wish I didn't." Avery flinched at the memory of Mulciber singing the Hogwarts school song late one night in the Slytherin common room. Although the room had been quite full initially, by the time Mulciber finished the last line only he, Avery, and Severus were still there, and the only reason Severus hadn't left was because some seventh year had very cruelly jinxed his feet to the floor.

Mulciber recited the hymn. As Avery didn't speak Hebrew, he had no idea what it was about, but he clapped when it was over.

"Lovely. Well, happy Hanukkah, Mulciber. I'd give you a present, but as I said before, that's just not possible in the current situation. I shall draw you a bottle of butterbeer, though, and I promise to buy you a real one once the Dark Lord gets us out of this place."

"Thanks. Draw yourself a silk robe; I'll get one for you as soon as the opportunity arises. Happy Hanukkah to you."

Avery grinned as he sketched on the floor with the rock. "Thanks. You know, I never guessed that one day I'd be sitting in Azkaban, actually having a _good time,_ celebrating a holiday from a religion I don't belong too, and discussing silk robes with a chap named Cyril. It's so odd it seems rather surreal. Impossible, even."

"Well, perhaps this place has finally gotten to you, and you've gone mad," Mulciber replied. "Either that or it's a holiday miracle."

* * *

The End. I did warn you all it was rather silly. Anyway, thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and please review; your input helps me to become a better writer, so I can write better stories for you to read... So in a way, reviewing will help _you!_ Er.


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